THE SENIOR MEN'S CLUB OF NEW CANAAN
Minutes of the Regular Meeting of July 6, 2001
President Lee Hindenach opened the meeting with 121 members present.
Membership is 500 with 23 on the waiting list.
Announcements: Ken Degroot introduced new member Georges Brigham.
Lee Hindenach announced that the Senior Men's Club had received 4
complimentary airline tickets from Jet Blue president David Neeleman.
The tickets will be raffled off to the members at a later date with
the proceeds going to the YMCA elevator fund. Joe Sweet made a
brief speech explaining the reasoning behind the $20 charge for the
July 4 festivities. Basically the money is needed to cover all the
costs since the town does not subsidize the event. Dick Depatie
announced that we're all healthy.
There is no meeting next week, July 13, 2001.
Activities: Bridge and tennis continue as scheduled. Bowling is in
recess until after Labor Day. Trailblazers next hike is 7/16 at
Troutbrook. 4-Fs next luncheon is 8/17 at the Woodway Beach Club.
Golf next outing on 7/18 at Oak Hills. Please bring $47 for the
pleasure. Racquetball had 3 this morning. Getting very consistent.
Couth: August trip will be to Caramoor on Saturday, 8/11. Dinner at
the "Bistro" restaurant is included, all for $95. July 28 Jazz
Festival has just added a second bus so there are now more openings.
9/12 is Belmont at $65 and 10/3 is Mystic, also at $65.
Jester: John Berg told a story about a wonderful musician who could
play almost anything by ear until having a few too many at the bar
which had a very negative effect on his memory.
Speaker: Vice President Bert Liebelt introduced Tom Mcbride, former
associate Watergate special prosecuter. Mr. Mcbride was in charge
of the Campaign Contributions group investigating campaign officials
and heads of companies giving or receiving illegal donations. Two of
his biggest "catches" were George Steinbrenner and Armand Hammer.
Mr. Mcbride told many anecdotes, some quite humorous, such as how the
Watergate break-in team was made up of bunglers who turned off their
walkie talkies during the break-in, cutting off their communication
with lookout man Jim McCord. He also gave many insights on President
Nixon himself. The President used profanity like crazy and was paranoid
about getting people and organizations that were against him. Mr. Nixon
would have liked to close down MIT and the Brookings Institute. In
the tapes it was also revealed that good ambassadorships were only
available for $250,000. The reasons Nixon didn't destroy the tapes
were (1) he thought with his immunity he'd never have to give them up,
(2) he wanted to "have the goods" on people, (3) he needed them to
write a book, and (4) he could get a big tax deduction from them. Mr.
Mcbride concluded by recommending two books about the case, one by
Judge John Sirica, and the other, "Blind Ambition," by John Dean.
He also, through his experience, thinks FBI agents are very good,
but that over the years the FBI leadership has been very narrow-minded.
Eric Musa, Secretary